Saturday, February 17, 2018

Okay, You "Want" Your AR-15? Fine, Then You Ought To Be Willing to Compromise On Gun Law

Recall in my post on the "gun-tards" and 2nd amendment- after the Parkland massacre, I wrote:

"You don't need a military assault weapon for "protection" or for hunting...No upstanding citizen in these United States "needs" such a weapon.."Evidently a gun aficionado in FLA took umbrage at this "snow flake" take declaring that hey- it is not a question of "need" - but he WANTSthe damned AR-15. Ok, let us grant that he ought to be able to satisfy that lurking want, especially as he has a law abiding (military, police) background. So is your ideal gun owner - even AR-15 owner- if there can ever be such a thing.Then I argue, if that is the case, he ought to be willing to accept the kind of gun laws passed in Massachusetts which has seen its gun death rate decline to only 2 in 100,000 compared to Florida's 13.1 per 100,000.He also lists, in terms of hunting, all the prey he fancies killing with the AR-15, including: coyote, white tail (deer), prairie dogs (encountered on a trip to TX), and other varmints. This despite - as blogger David Lindorff observes (see link at the end):"An AR-15 is not a hunting weapon. In fact there’s a reason it’s called an “assault rifle.” As a hunter, unless you’re an atrocious shot and are hunting random flocks of small birds, you certainly don’t need to be able to fire powerful ammunition of two bullets per second — the rate at which experts say H=an ordinary person could be able to pull the trigger."He also claims he wants the AR- 15 for home protection, so I suppose he's expecting an invasion of either 100 Isis radicals or Russian-trained guerillas. To bolster this he quotes a Broward County sheriff that "make no mistake the killer is the only one responsible" for all those 17 deaths. But this is hog shit- as the weaponis responsible at least for the LEVEL of carnage. Replace the AR-15 with a knife and I promise you seventeen don't get killed!As one of the Douglas students, Emma Gonzalez, said at the rally held at the school on Saturday: "He wouldn't have harmed that many students with a knife." Which is the key point and any dummy- even that sheriff - should grasp there's a world of difference between knife killing and gun killing. Any knife wielder would be taken down after the first couple stabs. The reason school shootings are so lethal in this country is because the perps select the most lethal weapons to carry out their deeds. The canard that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" can only be verified if the gun is subtracted from the scenario, If then, left with no gun- no AR-15 - Cruz still manages to kill 17 then yeah, people kill people. Otherwise the gun must be an integral part of the killing.

Anyway, he still cannot deny the recent Journal ofHealth Affairs research that concluded that the United States has become “the most dangerous of wealthy nations for a child to be born into.” According to the Health Affairs study. the homicide rate in this country is 49 times higher than in other rich countries. It doesn't take a Mensa level IQ to grasp this ratio cannot be solely from the U.S. having more crazies or criminals on the loose. The US of A cannot have 49 times more crazies and criminals than those other rich nations. That is a statistical impossibility .Given this, I propose that - especially as a former law officer - he should have no qualms, ZERO about accepting the MA gun laws, which I hereby repeat from a previous post and summarized from a Wikipedia article:

"Massachusetts Law requires firearm owners to be licensed through their local Police Department or the Massachusetts State Police if no local licensing authority is available. A license is required by state law for buying firearms and ammunition. An applicant must have passed a State approved firearm safety course before applying for a license.

All applications, interviews, fees, and fingerprinting are done at the local Police Department then sent electronically to the Massachusetts Criminal History Board for the mandatory background checks and processing. All approved applicants will receive their license from the issuing Police Department. All licensing information is stored by the Criminal History Board. Non residents who are planning on carrying in the state must apply for a temporary license to carry (LTC) through the State Police before their travel."

For perspective and reference, take the Parkland killer (Nikolas Cruz) and put him in Massachusetts instead of FLA. In the former state he'd have had to first pass a state approved gun safety course, then be licensed and fingerprinted.. His licensing info would then end up at a Criminal History Board assuming he passed the other thresholds. But I argue he'd have been finito at the safety course, i.e. he wouldn't have passed it, No way, not with his mental debility.

If this is true - on would have been of Cruz in MA- then I submit it's precisely this rigorous process that weeds out nuts and criminals from the outset. This isn't rocket science! What objections could our friendly AR-15 (and Glock) owner in FLA possibly have? Too troublesome and inconvenient? Give me a break! For anyone with his background and experience the MA law would be a breeze. A minor formality. But he knows as well as I do that it could prevent thousands from getting hold of weapons that put them - and especially others - at risk.

I also don't buy that the MA law is any imposition on his freedom. That is just codswallop. I DO agree that it likely represents a limit on the freedom of a crook or mental case to get a powerful weapon, that'd put others at risk.

But hey, since we're both for law and order, it should not matter that adopting another state's stringent gun laws limit access for crooks, slimeballs and other MFs, eh? And after all, it's not like the draconian Aussie law that mandates all citizens turn in their semi-automatics

I wait with bated breath to see his response, and I trust he bears in mind that I am conceding his ability for AR-15 ownership and fulfilling all his "wants" - especially to take out pesky prairie dogs when he encounters them. All I ask in turn is that he also concede the wisdom and rationality of the Massachusetts gun law in particular to keep the wrong guns out of the wrong hands. Again, the proof in the pudding is the low MA gun death rate.

If he is not willing to make this concession, in the interest of enhancing public safety - even though it's no skin off his nose - then I must conclude he's not truly serious about public safety. Well, other than maybe parroting Rick Scott's balderdash about mental health and "giving hugs". (Again, the MA law automatically subsumes 99.9% of the mental health issues by the barriers to ownership it features, especially passing the gun safety course like one would pass a driving test.)

One would hope he hears the cry of Parkland student "Sarah" who tweeted the following after she read Dotard's tweet about sending condolences to the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High:

I have to say, given what we are learning from neurology studies of the young brain, which show that the brain does not really reach maturity until the age of 24-26, and that one of the last things to reach mature development is the part of the brain that provides impulse control, you have to wonder why we are allowing people that age and younger, for example the legal age of maturity which is just 18, to buy such weapons of mass destruction....Any person, politician or lobbying organization (think National Rifle Association) that claims it’s every American’s god-given Constitutional right to buy and own an assault rifle, including young people with age-appropriate impulse control programs, and even documented mental health issues, is either an idiot, an ideologically driven nut-job, or has some kind of other insidious agenda.

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written thirteen books - the most recent:Fundamentals of Solar Physics. Also: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions;:'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God', Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.